


She Plays That Part, So Lonely and So Well

by cosmotronic



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Fluff, Holtzbert Secret Santa, Romance, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 06:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13229907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmotronic/pseuds/cosmotronic
Summary: Joy to all and peace on Earth she is fine with, but Christmas is a Big Deal and Erin doesn't really like Big Deals.For the Holtzbert Secret Santa 2017.





	She Plays That Part, So Lonely and So Well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riseuplikeangels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riseuplikeangels/gifts).



> Bit of sads, bit of feels, bit of fluffs, a bit sappier than originally intended. Hope you enjoy :)

 

It’s not that she doesn’t like Christmas, in theory at least. It’s just that she doesn’t like the practical application any more.

Christmas.  It’s a big deal. It’s bright and noisy and all about the appearance of love and the importance of family. Erin doesn’t like big deals and she really doesn’t like the weight of expectation that descends upon a woman of a certain age, how it’s amplified by the season.

Joy to all and peace on Earth she is fine with. But she thinks there’s something just a little bit sad about a middle-aged woman celebrating with that storebought spirit of togetherness. It feels like a con, when she’s so utterly alone.

She tries, for a few years. Buys a tree, sets it pride of place and decked with cheer then sits and drinks expensive wine and stares out of her window, and wonders.

Sometimes she wraps a scarf about her neck and set foot to the street, allows herself to be surrounded by the lights of the city, the bustle.

Everywhere, she finds seasonal good nature warring with last-minute frustration, desperation.  She watches, detached, as a woman throws loose change in a homeless man’s cap and takes the praises. Watches, as the woman fights with another woman over the last toy, the last box of chocolates, the last Christmas tree not destined for the chipper. Watches how the woman’s face twists in strange ways until their eyes meet and she looks away, anxious and ashamed, alone.

It’s cold. She buys the homeless man a coffee and wonders if she should offer the woman her Christmas tree.

Back in her apartment, a phone call from her mother like clockwork. Biting with disappointment when she explains that she will not be bringing home a nice sensible man for the holidays.

Nerves gnawed again to the root, she grows to dread the call, hates the tinny words needling at her ear like buzzing stings of failure.

Oh, there have been men, over the years. Men with sweater vests or sharp suits, men with briefcases and office walls full of self-congratulating academic merit and lives that don’t involve her beyond an occasional trophy dinner. Men with names like Phil. She’s never brought any of them home even though she knows her mother will love them, the idea of them. Because she knows in her heart it is a lie.

She doesn’t become bitter, or jaded, or anything like that. She just bows her head after a while and lets the season pass her by. She’s unaffected, she tells herself. Content, even.

But she’s not alone, now.

The others, they _adore_ Christmas. It becomes a big deal again.

And it’s harder this time.

Erin knows she should make a more of an effort, that when Abby accuses her of being a grinch there is a little truth, there.

Two years ago she didn’t buy a tree. Last year she didn’t walk the streets. This year the good cheer _grates_.

This year she saves the world but still her mother prattles about biological clocks when she presses the phone to her ear. Cutting to the bone with remarks about Erin’s old job; not how it stifled her but if she could only see how _good_ she had it then, safe, secure, she won’t find a nice man doing whatever it is she does now. And Erin sighs and bites her tongue just shy of outing herself, just to be able to imagine the look on her mother’s face at those two words.

_A woman._

_I’m gay._

_Jillian Holtzmann._

Holtz doesn’t like Christmas either, though she doesn’t say it in so many words.

After all, the Holtz the world sees loves the bright lights, the loud noise.  The Holtz the others expect to see loves her new family, being together.

And Christmas is all about family and togetherness and Holtz knows it’s supposed to be bright and noisy so she tries and Erin observes. The Holtz that Erin sees is small and lost beneath a performance, and a long time ago someone disappointed her and that is what Christmas is, now.

They both try, for the others, and for each other.

They are together, and they talk as lovers, but they are _new_ and still they wear the brave face.

And as the others become increasingly festive it becomes harder and harder and the cracks appear spouting sour acid behind their smiles, smiles with gritted teeth, and eventually Holtz disappears and Erin huffs and follows.

_Now look what you’ve done._

Abby remembers and Patty intuits and Kevin understands more than she’d ever have given him credit for, and they let her go.

Erin walks for hours, all the usual places. She carries both their cell phones in her coat pocket, both their sets of keys, a spare pair of gloves. Holtz forgets the bits and pieces of her life, sometimes, when she’s upset.

Holtz is upset and Erin aches because her love is out there, alone, hurting and everywhere she turns the seasonal atmosphere lies thick, cloying.

A lump packed hard in her throat and it’s not Erin’s fault but she knows she’s been her own martyr too long.

Her feet walk a familiar tread and it’s the most unusual of places and the most obvious of places, where Erin finally finds Holtz.

Erin’s hands are frozen so she stops to buy a coffee and, after a pause, another for the lump of a sleeping bag nearby. It’s then that she looks about and recognises the shape of the scene, the lights and the noise and twist of a man’s face as he tries to pry Christmas from a small woman’s hands-

Bare fingers, slim, gripped tight around a box of plastic tree ornaments-

Small sobs, a plea-

Holtz.

Erin rushes over, shoving the man aside in her haste and she bears his harsh words like blunted arrows while she wraps arms about her lover, presses lips to her forehead and murmurs soft words and apologies.

And the harsh words become dark mutterings under the man’s breath, directed at Erin and at Holtz and at those like them. Erin’s head snaps around to his, and their eyes meet and the man shrivels before the force of contempt in Erin’s glare and his fingers finally drop the box like it burns.

Holtz has a matching blaze in her eyes, cheeks red and mouth curved down but she sags after a few seconds and lets Erin take her hand.

They wander the store for a while, meandering around displays and letting the busy people and the noise and the chaos flow around them. They pick things up, random things in green and gold and red but Erin is hesitant and Holtz is detached, listless, oddly avoidant.

Their eyes connect finally across an overpriced, shockingly illuminated winter wonderland. It’s hideous and at once magical and Holtz bites her lip but her eyes betray amusement and Erin smiles wanly.

And they abandon their basket of sad cheer without a word and go to Erin’s apartment and make love beneath a mountain of blankets and afterwards they mumble something like a love you to each other.

_You’re all I need for Christmas._

_You’re all I need._

And for a year, it holds true.

It’s a year later.

There’s no phone call from her mother this time around, having said the two words many months ago and suffered the hysterical denial and then the cold, cold acceptance.

Still, she doesn’t need it.

They’re walking past the brightly-lit storefronts, Erin and Holtz, arm in arm and snuggled close. They walk the streets a lot now, just the two of them, and they quietly observe the world about them curving past and slipping by. They walk and watch and feel a part of something, while at the same time safely distant and anonymous.

Erin thinks it could be a dream, until reality crashes through. Loud and unexpected but not entirely unwelcome in moments like this.

The store seems to call to Holtz and the blonde slows, stops, turns and sighs and Erin wraps gloved hands about her lover’s waist and rests her head on a slumped shoulder.

And waits.

There’s a conflict somewhere deep inside that brilliant mind, resolved all of a sudden when Holtz grasps Erin’s hand and tugs her inside the doorway. The heat hits her first, then the bustle and the bright lights and Erin shrinks but small fingers tighten about her own in a shaky confidence as Holtz leads them both to the winter wonderland.

And waits.

They talk as more than lovers now, and now that Erin knows the sad story she feels her heart ache for the tiny, odd child who never had family, togetherness. Who only had bare walls and blank spaces at Christmas. Stern faces, a drunken Santa Claus trying his best with the small sack of welcome but impersonal donations. And through it all, year after year, a parade of disappointment.

_Too weird._

_Too queer._

And then, eventually,

_Too old._

Holtz is biting her lip and squeezing Erin’s hand so tightly she can feel the vibrations of indecision through the contact and the thump of an uncertain heartbeat.

Christmas never came for the child called Jillian, the child without a family. Erin knows there was a time Holtz would have yearned for a family like her own. Imperfect, even hurtful at times in their expectations and disbelief, but ultimately loving, secure, safe.

She feels ashamed at her own years of bitterness, thankful now for what she had. Even more thankful for what she has now.

Erin asks the question, low and quiet but heavy with meaning, a singular what-if clear above the bustle and the jostling of the other shoppers. And Holtz nods.

They buy a tree. It’s cheap and artificial and a little lopsided, being the last one on the shelf and not fit for fighting over.

They set it proud and tall in Erin’s apartment and then they sit for a while, sit close in each other’s warmth, and they wonder and she’s not sure if it’s working, if she’s doing this _right_. Until Erin feels Holtz shift against her, hot breath on her neck and a kiss, an affirmation.

Erin tilts her head down to meet it, emboldened. And Holtz smiles slowly, slyly, mischievously against Erin’s lips and throws a spare loop of tinsel about her shoulders to lock her in place, to hold her in the moment.

_Merry Christmas_.

They make love in the middle of the living room, tangled in tinsel and glowing under the fairy lights and breathless with laughter.

The laughter rings through the year.

Another year, another Christmas. The fairy lights glint white and gold from the rings about their fingers as they stand back with hands clasped tight and they wonder as the room is suddenly lit inescapably more brightly.

Holtz had wanted a light-up penguin. It’s big and blue and _incredibly_ gaudy and Erin had winced because she’s sure they are intended to be displayed outdoors and not in their tiny living room. But she agreed, because it’s Holtz and it’s them and it’s all they need.

They still go quiet, and they still observe the season as something _apart_ , but it doesn’t claw at them and suffocate so much, now.

And they still recede into what the others will come to call their _festive exile_ , but it’s said fondly, with love and understanding.

_Leave them be._

_They’ve got everything they need._

And when Erin’s hand drops subconsciously to her stomach she tries to believe it.

Holtz’s eyes drop with the motion but she doesn’t say anything, just sinks deeper into Erin’s arms at night and breathes warmth in her air, breathes love and all she needs and eventually breathes a timid question.

_Are you okay?_

Not said,

_Are you happy?_

_Is this enough?_

Erin nods into the dark, because she doesn’t want to voice a lie and it’s Christmas and that does seem to mean something now, and she already has more than she deserves. She is thankful, she tells the memory of the voice on the phone. Thankful for the blonde mess in her bed and for her friends and for all the love in her life.

But still, Christmas morning is subdued.

Erin stares at their small expression of the season, living room dominated by their crooked tree and that _stupid fucking penguin_.

It feels emptier.

Holtz is quietly thoughtful; they don’t always need to talk, now. Erin can read the tics and quirks of her wife’s face like the scratchings on her whiteboard. And she waits.

And watches bemused as Holtz springs into action, grabbing her by the hand and bundling them both up in gloves and hats and scarves and thick, thick coats with an alacrity that leaves Erin giddy and breathless and standing stupefied in their hallway.

Holtz is alive and smiling by the door, blue penguin in her arms.

And once again they walk the streets, oddly empty on this day. Soothing after the bustle of the mounting season. The city seems to sigh in relief, universe contracting and expanding and settling about their two souls.

They walk, Holtz leading and sometimes stopping and shaking her head and turning about. And they walk the same streets more than once, Erin is sure, but she follows without comment.

And eventually Holtz slows, stops, turns and sighs and Erin rests her head on a slumped shoulder and looks at the sad building in front of them.

Of course. The most obvious of places.

There are perhaps twenty small forms and curious faces in the building; they come and go and drift through, occasionally whisked away by tutting nuns with steely faces and soft eyes.

Holtz is wonderful with children, and even more with these children deemed the detritus of society. The too-weirds, the too-queers, the too-olds.

Erin observes, and soon another joins her watch.

The girl is young and gap-toothed and shy, burying her head in Erin’s pant leg but interested enough to peek around her handful of cloth. And Erin is shy too, but eventually the girl migrates to her lap and together they take in the scene.

The boy is older and sullen and affects an air of disinterest. Erin observes, and sees his anger, and his years of disappointment.

And she sees Holtz, again, anew. Like a reflection but distorted by time and circumstance. Holtz isn’t angry, and her disappointment is dulled by the actions of years and the touch of love but Erin can imagine sour, sore Jillian in a place like this.

She’s not sure why they are here, really, but it feels right. A corner, a door, a split in the path.

They don’t have any presents, but the blue penguin captivates the smaller children while Erin reads aloud from bent and torn and taped-together books, and Holtz does the voices and pokes Erin until she does the voices too. And the nuns tut, but Holtz cavorts and pulls faces and later fixes their television so they can all watch cartoons together with the sound turned up far too loud.

It’s late before they know it, but the girl doesn’t let them leave until all the children’s heads are drooping. And then they are leaving quietly, when desperate feet thunder after them and the boy catches them both in a joint-crushing hug.

Erin is wordless, and Holtz is knowing, smiling over the top of a tousled head.

Another year goes by, and then another, another.

Holtz grumbles now as Erin fusses about their apartment, lit ever more brightly with festive cheer hung from every wall, but safely placed and out of reach of small fingers and a curious grasp.

_Relax_.

_We’ve got everything we need._

Presents piled high beneath their tree, Erin’s precise and tasteful wrapping and Holtz’s rougher attempts. It’s the first time they’ve really bothered in all the years they’ve known each other, apart from small gifts for the others.

But it’s not just them, now.

And suddenly _everything they need_ turns into endless shopping trips, letters to Santa and dwindling bank balances and _just another little stocking filler_.

Holtz bites her lip and huffs a lot when they are amongst the bustle and cloying press of the city, and Erin feels a pinch of shame and wonders if she has herself become like the people she once scorned and pitied at this time of year.

But Holtz squeezes her hand and nods encouragingly and slyly elbows her way past a woman with a harsh twisted face and a man with harsh twisted words to pick up another piece of Christmas to bring into their home.

And there’s another bag of presents by their door, for later, for the children without a home.

They are exhausted, when it’s all done. But it’s okay because Holtz knows as Erin does, it’s all worth it.

Erin is actually happy, actually content and she does not know what she has done to deserve it. She is thankful, for her blessed life and her grumpy wife and her crooked tree and everything else she has found.

Her family.

And it’s not ever what she thought she’d need, not what they told her she should want.

She stops suddenly, stock still in the centre of their living room. The phone is silent, and Erin’s lip trembles and she squeezes her eyes shut until she feels Holtz come close behind her, press against her back and follow the line of her thought.

_We could tell her._

She shakes her head and turns in her wife’s arms, runs her hands down across the flatness of her belly with a strange smile on her lips.

She wipes her eyes and they walk to a doorway where they stand for a time, strings of fairy lights guiding their way and casting warm colours over the room and across two small tousled heads.

It’s late, their family sleeping soundly and dreaming of sleigh bells and brightly-wrapped gifts and excited voices rising with the dawn, and of safety and security and love.

Erin wipes Holtz’s eyes dry, too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Rumours of my demise have been exaggerated. Thanks for sticking by, friends :)
> 
> My alter ego keeps a hot mess of a [tumblr](https://cosmotronic87.tumblr.com/), if that's your thing.


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